International Consultant (IC) on Gender Action Learning System (GALS)

Background

“Having open and honest discussions about what violence is,

in a safe environment, can have a massive impact in stopping violence”

Sangam World Centre leader

UN Women, the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women has been created to accelerate up the process of meeting the needs of women and girls across the world. UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programs and services needed to ensure that the standards are effectively implemented and truly benefit women and girls worldwide. UN Women is at the forefront of the global drive to remove gender barriers and end discrimination, because we believe in a world of justice and human rights for everyone.

About 85 % of Tajik labor migrants are male and 20 % migrate with their wives. In 2016, 50 % of households in Tajikistan were female headed, with 87 % of children remaining behind with a single parent. Many Tajik men working abroad gradually cease contact with their families and stop sending remittances, opting to build a new life in Russia. This has led to the existence of an extremely vulnerable and marginalized group in Tajik society, the so-called ‘abandoned families’ or ‘families left behind’ of migrant workers. Women and children left behind suffer from poor wellbeing, including mental health, with women and children experiencing negative mental health outcomes, compounded by limited services and support. The current CFP targets abandoned families of migrant workers (with women- abandoned wives in focus), prioritizing the most vulnerable families, including those with a member facing disability.

Families left behind often struggle to access rights and protections, incl. limited access to legal remedies and discrimination in the application of law. They may be unable to divorce their absent husbands or obtain court ordered alimony and child support. There are no functioning systems to identify and register families left behind and a limited awareness of available services. Rural women left behind lack equal access to property, land, and credit making them dependent on the men in their families and increasing their vulnerability to poverty. This leads to economic and other forms of violence against the abandoned wives. Traditionally, wives live with their in-laws, and legally claiming a domicile after divorce or abandonment is difficult. Women may lack money for documents and lawyers or be unaware of legal protections, limiting access to justice. Practically, no or few initiatives target ‘families left behind’. Representation from amongst this group will be a key stakeholder driving much of the stakeholder engagement in the field.

The joint (with IOM, UNICEF and FAO) project Empowerment of ‘Families left behind’ for improved Migration Outcomes in Khatlon, Tajikistan (MMPTF-funded), a part of which will be implemented jointly with the sought CSO- UN Women’s Responsible Party, observes a comprehensive approach, attention to good governance and capacity of local systems, a need to build awareness, knowledge and attitudes of the local population and a focus on longer term transformative gender investments. The project enjoys support and cooperation of Local Authorities; Committee on Women and Family Affairs (CoWFA) and its local Departments, Ministry of Health and Social Protection (MoHSP) and its local Departments, Ministry of Labour, Migration and Employment of Population (MoLMEP) and its local Departments, Migration Services (MS) and Departments of Agriculture.

The prevalence of VAWG in public and private sphere is driven by multiple factors, especially by patriarchal social structures and norms (that becomes even stronger recently), deep-rooted gender inequalities, lack of adequate education. Gender-related social norms influence the specific knowledge, attitude and behaviors towards women at various levels, starting from the legislation, going to violence-related patterns at the community and individual levels. In this regard, while the Constitution of Tajikistan guarantees equal rights for both men and women; in reality, women and girls continue facing significant barriers to accessing sexual and reproductive health, education and economic services. Limited access to services is compounded by the violence against women at the household level. The adolescents’ knowledge, attitude and practice of gender equality, and their mind-set are being formed chaotically, often by internet and social networks. Moreover, the law enforcement institutions indicate that the endemic nature of the problem can only be addressed with the broad support of the public and changing the social norms, as well as behavior and attitudes of youth, men and boys across various strata of the society. In fact, violence in many cases can be foreseen and prevented.

UN Women aims to introduce innovative approaches in Tajikistan in working with social norms by applying Gender Action Learning System (GALS) methods for identification of new social norm holders to create a demand within communities and individuals to stop impunity of violence, formation a public opinion on illegality of violence and Harmful Practices and stressing it as crime. GALS is a structured methodology for empowerment aiming at economic, social and political transformation. It gives women and men more control over their lives and catalyzes a movement towards gender justice. GALS includes a variety of visual tools, including road journeys, trees and circle maps to enable individuals and households to plan and track changes in their lives, gender relations and livelihoods, as well as identify and negotiate their needs and interests with power-holders.

UN Women in Tajikistan intends to hire International Consultant (IC), who will adopt GALS methodology to the context of Tajikistan and train local experts and CSOs on GALS Module and conduct 9 days TOT in Dushanbe or Khatlon District from/in 2 selected districts (10 community 14 Jamoats). IC needs to plan travel to Dushanbe and to conduct TOT and support local facilitators.

These ToT trainees (local facilitators) are expected to gain understanding of GALS Context, principles, its key features and the methodology to undertake the GALS activities within targeted communities. They are also expected to be able to be apply the GALS tools and participatory processes that will be adapted for life improvement, including planning, economic and livelihoods development, environmental management and improved health and nutrition status of each targeted household.

Trainees will also provide sessions to targeted communities to promote gender equality, fight stereotypes, community empowerment to enable rural women and men to have equal opportunity to participate in and have equal voice and influence in rural institutions and organizations.

Duties and Responsibilities

The overall goals and objectives of the proposed consultancy is to support the local experts and selected CSO partners (total 22 participants: 4 representatives of the CSO - RP (facilitators, mobilizers), 4 representatives of relevant NGOs from the indicated districts, and 14 enthusiasts/leaders from target Communities) in integrating GALS in target localities in order to achieve the effective participation and socio-economic empowerment of women within the Empowerment of ‘Families left behind’ project.

The IC will conduct 9 day’s TOT in Dushanbe or Khatlon for 20 participants - future GALS facilitators. After the TOTs, the IC will render 4 months’ remote technical support to facilitators and on-line consultations during reflection workshops in target districts with communities. The dates of 9-day TOT will be agreed between the International GALS consultant and the selected CSO.

The objectives are:

To enable UN Women Responsible Partner CSO (RP) with knowledge and skills to facilitate target communities and households to develop gender action learning plans.
To equip RP with the tools and techniques to enable target women and men to collect and analyze information necessary to understanding and changing gender relations, stereotypical norms and behavior that lead to VAWG.
To equip RP with knowledge and skills to map gender and power issues in rural/migrant households, livelihoods and power relations and to sustainably integrate GALS in rural livelihoods and community development processes to mobilize communities for critical thinking and gender transformative interventions
To catalyze an increased commitment, understanding, potential of the trainees in their capacity of gender transformative programme mentors.

TOT participants will become GALS Facilitators - people who train, advise and support GALS champions, coordinate, help track and evaluate the results of the GALS process in communities.

Following the GALS methodology, there will be at least 14 New Social Norms Champions (NSNC) in 14 communities in 10 Jamoats, who will undertake actions to change their own behaviors, and then influencing at least 5 other persons (family and community members) per each champion to convert them to fight violence and discriminatory norms, and those, in turn, each champion will train 4 additional persons (domino effect). It will help to create self-motivated community activities, involving 280 individuals by cascading knowledge, and then overall covering all districts.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Under the supervision of the UN Women Country Programme Manager and/or Program Coordinator, GALS International Consultant will be responsible for adaptation of GALS Methodology to the context of Tajikistan and provision of 9-days TOTs for local experts and CSOs:

Develop & provide consultancy plan on implementing process to UNW Team;
Training material adaptation/development: Develop/adapt GALS Trainer’s Manual and IEC material/handouts (to be given to the target female and male participants of capacity building

sessions) on the identified GALS themes to help RP effectively deliver the capacity building sessions to the target communities (both male and female participants). Training materials/manual will include visuals/illustrations, Background Material, guidance notes for the facilitators/RPs and session plans. The key topics for the training course for RPs that are to be further cascaded down to the communities and target household level are as follows:

1. Understanding and application of key concepts related to Gender Action Learning Systems.

2. GALS Principles, Key feature and Methodology

3. Community Action Learning

4. Participatory Gender Review

5. Knowledge and skills to map gender and power issues in rural/migrants’ households, livelihoods, and value chains.

6. Gender action learning skills and tools to enable target RP in target communities to collect and analyze information necessary to understanding and changing the gender

relations.

7. Knowledge and skills to apply participatory visual diagramming tools that are used for

visioning, analysis, change planning and tracking by individuals, households, and community institutions.

8. Sustainable integration of GALS in rural livelihoods and community development process.

ToT Delivery: The IC will conduct 9-day TOT training on application of the methodology and cascade GALS to the RP staff and facilitators on the aforesaid contents and the training module and session plans approved by UN Women Project Manager. The IC will come to Tajikistan for 12 days and conduct training (9 days of training + 2 days arrival/departure + 1 preparatory day).
Pre- and post- training evaluation has to be done and submitted to the RP and UN Women. Based on the evaluation/assessment done the ToT participants will become GALS Facilitators and will be provided by a certificate of completion of the training.
Render remote technical support to the RP and facilitators and consultations during reflection workshops in target districts with communities for 4 months. The remote/online consultations will be provided by IC 2 times a month (days will be agreed with the selected CSO).
Review and finalize the GALS Methodology based on the results of TOTs and consultations with participants;
Submit final report on deliverables, recommendations and lessons learnt.

Expected deliverables

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Deliverables

Timeframe to provide deliverables

1

Consultancy plan is presented to UN Women

09 December 2022

2

Updated (TJK specific) GALS Methodology, GALS Trainer’s Manual and IEC material/handouts and ToT training agenda presented and validated with UN Women - home-based

17 December 2022

3

9-day TOTs conducted and delivered to local experts and CSOs and GALS facilitators are capacitated. – in country

18 January 2022

4

Final ToT report with concrete recommendations to the RP (including the roadmap for implementation of GALS) presented to UN Women

4 February 2022

5

Based on TOT feedback, GALS Methodology for the Tajikistan finalized and submitted to UN Women

11 February 2022

6

The remote/online consultations be provided by IC 2 times a month (days will be agreed with the selected CSO) for 4 months (end of the ToT plus 4 months)

By 15 March 2022

7

Report on conducted work and deliverables submitted to UN Women

By 25 March 2022

Competencies

Core Values:

Respect for Diversity
Integrity
Professionalism

Core Competencies:

Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
Accountability
Creative Problem Solving
Effective Communication
Inclusive Collaboration
Be client-oriented – ability to listen all parties and to facilitate the process for mutual satisfaction and consensus
Ability to work in a multicultural environment and in a team

Functional Competencies:

Good knowledge of technical area;
Good organizational skills and ability to pay close attention to detail;
Proven excellent communication and facilitation skills;
Experience in report writing.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Master’s degree in one of the areas: education, gender or social development, humanitarian sciences, human rights, public health or related area. A Bachelor’s degree may be accepted with +2 more years’ experience (total 5 years).

Working Experience:

At least 3 years of practicing in conducting training/mentorship of adults on gender equality/inclusiveness; or social justice; or community/youth mobilization.
Proved experience in practicing Gender Action Learning System (GALS) or very similar methodologies on Community mobilization for gender action and transformative interventions; submission of GALS trainer’s certificate is an asset.
Experience in conducting Training of Trainers is an asset;
At least 2 years of experience in development of the programmes, curricula, manuals or training modules on gender and social development;
Prior experience in the work environment of an International agency, NGOs, Women’s Organizations, UN, or international institutions.

Knowledge of languages:

Proficient knowledge of Russian language; knowledge of English and Tajik languages are an asset

Other:

Good computer skills in Windows environment, knowledge of internet communications and command of MS Office applications (Word, Excel, Power Point).